Local Republicans and Democrats alike want to see Georgia election officials return to hand-marked ballots, citing the need for a paper trail that shows a voter’s intent.
In a petition submitted to the State Election Board (SEB) for consideration during its Aug. 6 meeting, Morgan County Democratic Party Chairwoman Jeanne Dufort urged the state to use the Dominion 5.5-A version voting system “in its standard configuration — hand marked ballots tabulated by precinct and central scanners, reserving the ICX touchscreen units for voters who need assistive technology.”
Dufort explained to The Federalist that the paper ballots would still be “scanned like normal. The only component that changes is in the voting station. … The voter will be handed a paper ballot and a sharpie and they will mark their ballot before going over to a scanner and everything else will flow in the exact same way it has in elections since we adopted the system.”
“The only change is how the ballot is marked,” Dufort said.
Currently, voters mark their ballot on a touchscreen before a print-out summary and QR code of their vote is created.
Prior to adopting the current system, the state used a DRE system, which stands for direct-recording electronic machines.
“We were using a ballot-less system called a DRE system…where you mark your ballot on a tablet and then there wasn’t any physical ballot created, it kind of just went into a black hole on the computer,” Dufort told The Federalist. “So that was a very
